100 Lives
by freshia
Summary: It might take that many to get the right ending. Riren.


_**Reincarnation** - rebirth in new bodies or forms of life; _especially_ **:** a rebirth of a soul in a new human body_

* * *

-_**One**_

Eren never imagined it would go down like this. It never occurred to him that he'd be the one holding his dying lover in his arms. As a matter of fact, he hadn't ever thought about it the other way around either. It was a strange, almost abstract concept, and he had detached himself from it. Death was something that happened to other people, not to him, and not to the people around him. Not to Mikasa, Armin, certainly not humanity's strongest soldier.

But not even the most talented and thorough soldier in the world can't help mechanical malfunctions. Rivaille had put up a fight until the very end, not even collapsing until the area was clear. But by the time someone had noticed, it was far too late to stop the bleeding. 3 large gashes all the way down his back, so deep that even if it could have been treated, he probably would have been worthless to the squad.

(Later, Eren would think about how Rivaille probably would have rather died anyway.)

And as he holds the dying man he thinks of ironic it was, that Eren should have been dead 30 times over but fate has a funny way of twisting things so that someone rash and headstrong is given near-invulnerability, and someone calculated and level-headed is given faulty 3D Maneuver Gear.

"Don't go." Eren pleads, and Rivaille scoffs at him.

"I'll still be kicking titan ass even in death. You'd better chin up and start acting like a man, Eren."

Eren holds a dying man in his arms, a dying man who he shared kisses, both chaste and passionate, and he thinks of that time when he and Mikasa were young, and she told him that no one lives just one life because when they die they are reborn in another time at a different place. "Reincarnation", she called it.

Eren hopes that Rivaille is reincarnated to a place better than this.

-_**Twelve**_

Despite how most of the students feel, Eren has a great amount of respect for Professor Rivaille.

He runs his classroom like a dictatorship, ruled it with an iron-fist, and accepted absolutely no excuses. He was rude, cussed in class, and generally used intimidation to keep his class orderly. Nobody dared backtalk him, and if you missed a class because of an unexcused absence well that was just _too fucking bad, maybe you shouldn't be skipping out on Military History class, brat._

He wasn't a school favorite.

But Eren knew that the Professor wasn't all bad, because one day on the way home he saw him hunched over a bunch of stray kittens with a grocery bag full of cat food sitting next to him. And as he watched the older man reach down and pet each and every one, the younger brunette decided that maybe, just maybe Rivaille did have a soft spot.

Eren told no one what he saw. In a way, it was magical, having that kind of information to himself. Eren wasn't even sure why it was so important, but it was, and he held onto that scene, sometimes replaying it over and over in his head.

Yeah, Eren had a great amount of respect for Professor Rivaille.

_-**Twenty-eight**_

There's a man standing in front of him at the airport security line, a man with dark, perfect hair and amazingly defined sharp features and suddenly Eren is ashamed of his messy bed-head and crumpled shirt because _God, this guy is hot._

But as if the man in front of him could read his mind, he tilted his head slightly and gave Eren the sharpest glare the boy had ever recieved in his life.

A nostalgic chill made it's way down Eren's spine, and despite himself he shivered. He thought about how those lips probably tasted like cigarettes and mint-toothpaste, a strange combination that seemed to make perfect sense.

But before he could really ponder such a random thought, the man had already moved ahead and past security, on his way to boarding a plane that was headed in the opposite direction Eren was.

He'd never see that man again, but the glare stuck in Eren's mind.

-_**Fifty-three  
**_

Rivaille lifts his knee against Eren's crotch as he's pinned against the wall, leaving bitemarks and kisses all around the younger man's neck.

And this is so wrong but so right, Eren thinks, because Rivaille is married to a petite blonde girl named Petra, who is the sweetest person you'd ever meet and Eren is in a long-term relationship with his childhood friend Mikasa.

But they can't seem to stop this affair (though very few efforts were made to _truly_ stop anyway) and no one is suspicious because it's just two men, two friends hanging out together.

Eren feels guilty, but also relieved, because he doesn't really _want_ to stop this.

But he knows better. He knows that the house is sold, and that Rivaille and Petra both are moving away in less than a month, not just a few miles away but a few _countries_ away. Eren thinks about stopping him, asking him to run away together or something else just as dumb, because he's pretty sure he's more in love with Rivaille than he is with Mikasa anyway, or maybe it's a different kind of love. But he knows the older man's answer already.

That would be taking the easy way out, and if he knows Rivaille (he does) then he knows there's nothing he hates more than cutting corners.

Eren knows they'll meet again though.

Because he's a Christian, and he has no idea what Rivaille is, but he figures it doesn't really matter because they're both falling into hell together.

-_**Eighty**_

Eren is running _late late _so_ late_ that he thinks that his boss is going to chew his ass or give him some three hour lecture or _something_ of the sort. As he rushes into the company building, he prays that he won't be fired, even though he knows the idea is unlikely since Eren's the only assistant that's stayed as long as he had.

But he's lucky today, because Rivaille, his boss, is busy on the phone and barely seems to acknowledge Eren's presence. The 19 year old boy sighs in relief, sitting down behind his small work-station and attempts to fix his tie that had been hanging limply around his neck.

Eren has worked here for three months now, which beats the record for "longest staying assistant" by about two months and two weeks. And sometimes Hanji, the nosy receptionist, would tease him about it. It was almost like she had a strange obsession with seeing how red she could make the younger boy turn.

"So just _how_ in love do you have to be to want to hang around Rivaille day in and out?"

"Aww, puppy's blushing."

Normally Eren would just brush the comments off. But Hanji had no idea just how right she was, because Eren had a _massive_ crush on his boss.

And it probably showed in his actions, the way that he remembered Rivaille's favorite things off the top of his head without being told twice, or the way that he didn't complain whenever Rivaille asked him to clean up stuff around the office (even though he wasn't the building janitor, or even close). Eren was a fairly transparent person.

But if Rivaille ever noticed, he never said a word.

Hanji's teasing wasn't just limited to Eren, though, or so he figured by the way that sometimes Hanji would run out of his office cackling while Rivaille threatened various violent acts at her with red ears.

"Brat."

Eren jerks up, snapping out of his train of thought. He pales as he realizes _oh crap, maybe I'm not as off of the hook as I thought I was_. Swallowing nervously, he stutters out a "Y-Yes, sir?"

Rivaille slams his hand onto the desk, and Eren winces, thinking he's really done it now. But when his boss's hand lifts up, there's a ticket to the movie theaters, and Eren's heart jumps up into his throat.

"Don't get the wrong idea. Hanji bought them and flaked out, so it'd be a waste if I didn't find someone else to go." he says, before promptly stomping off. Eren gapes as he watches the older man's retreating back, barely seeing Hanji giving him a thumbs-up of the corner of his eye.

-_**One hundred**_

Two men stand side-by-side, covered in blood from their final battle.

_The_ final battle.

Humanity has won, and Eren drops his 3D Maneuver Gear and locks his hand with the shorter man's, bends down to brush his lips against Rivaille's.

He is met with no resistance.

* * *

**A/N:** It took 3 people to coax me into posting this lmao. I've had it written for a couple days but I just kept going over it and over it, and there's still one part that I'm really not happy with but I'M DONE. haha. this story came about because i wanted to write too many AUs at once and it just turned into this.

I know that it has a lame ending but I'm not good at endings forgive me.


End file.
